In a continuing effort to improve the quality of shipping fruits, we, the inventors, typically hybridize a large number of peach, nectarine, plum, apricot, and cherry seedlings each year. We also grow a smaller number of open pollinated seeds of each of these fruits, usually to capture recessive traits. The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of nectarine tree, which has been denominated varietally as ‘Candysweet XII’.
The present variety was hybridized by us in 2008 as a first generation cross using a ‘5P452’ white flesh nectarine (unpatented) as the selected seed parent and ‘Kay Diamond VII’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 18,715) nectarine, as the selected pollen parent. Upon reaching maturity the fruit of this cross was gathered, and the seeds were removed, cracked, stratified, germinated, and grown as seedlings on their own root in our greenhouse. Upon reaching dormancy the seedlings were transplanted as a group to a cultivated area of our experimental orchard located near Le Grand, Calif., in Merced County (San Joaquin Valley). During the fruit evaluation season of 2012 we selected the present variety as a single tree from the group of seedlings described above. Subsequent to origination of the present variety of nectarine tree, we asexually reproduced it by budding and grafting in the experimental orchard described above, and such reproduction of plant and fruit characteristics were true to the original tree in all respects. The reproduction of the variety included the use of ‘Nemaguard’ (unpatented) rootstock upon which the present variety was compatible and true to type.
The present variety is similar to its seed parent, ‘5P452’ (unpatented) white nectarine, by producing nectarines that are firm, mostly red in skin color, nearly globose in shape, clingstone in type, and sub-acidic in flavor, but is quite distinguished therefrom by producing fruit that is yellow instead of white in flesh color and sweeter in flavor.
The present variety is similar to its pollen parent, ‘Kay Diamond VII’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 18,715) nectarine, by producing nectarines that are large in size, firm in texture, mostly red in skin color, globose to oblong in shape, clingstone in type, and yellow in flesh color, but is quite distinguished therefrom by having globose leaf glands instead of being eglandular, by blooming in the mid season instead of early, and by producing fruit that is sub-acidic instead of acidic in flavor and that matures about twenty-three days later.
The present variety is most similar to ‘Sugarine I’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 16,585) nectarine by being self-fertile, by having globose leaf glands, and by producing nectarines that are similar in size, firm in texture, mostly red in skin color, yellow in flesh color, nearly globose in shape, clingstone in type and excellent in flavor, but is distinguished therefrom by blooming earlier, by being a larger tree, and by producing fruit that has a bitter instead of sweet kernel and that matures about twelve days earlier.